Are Windows Office file formats nowadays an acceptable format for ripping output?

[David Milisock]

Hi David,

I'm not familiar with the term "N color transparency". Are you referring to Device N and transparency as a single item?

​Adobe RIPS see RGB, CMYK, N color is used for all other colors, MS Publisher (and I'm not sure as I've not used the latest versions) cannot produce spot color transparency. It can produce spot color just not transparent spot colors. As I said I may be wrong on that as I believe I have 2013 and there is now a 365 version.

 

[Dov Isaacs]

Like it or not it goes back to the knowledge of the file creator. Word, Excel and PowerPoint are certainly issues due to low resolution a assumed sRGB color space. With that said I get MS Publisher files that work far better then some Adobe CC files MAC or PC from so called professionals.

There is absolutely no question that “knowledge of the file creator” really overrides almost any other consideration. The biggest problem we have these days is that since access to tools is universal, the assumption is that they can be utilized using the “Professor Harold Hill Think Method!” Sorry, but there really is no substitute for investing the time and effort to learn the basics of graphics including but not limited to typography, layout, color (additive and subtractive), and overall workflow in addition to learning the particulars of the tools being used.

And yes, if you really know the basics and what you are doing, you can produce high quality publications with Word or Publisher. And if you simply install the Adobe software on your system and you know squat about the basics and how to use these very sophisticated tools, you can produce absolute garbage.

- Dov

 

[Dov Isaacs]

​Adobe RIPS see RGB, CMYK, N color is used for all other colors, MS Publisher (and I'm not sure as I've not used the latest versions) cannot produce spot color transparency. It can produce spot color just not transparent spot colors. As I said I may be wrong on that as I believe I have 2013 and there is now a 365 version.

There have been pitifully few advances in the Publisher product over the years. It is still a 1990's era product with some slight concession to issues such as transparency.

The overall problem with the Microsoft authoring products is that they really haven't advanced beyond 1990's era GDI with slight enhancements for transparency, OpenType layout, and CMYK passthrough. Microsoft stubbornly refused to embrace the PDF imaging model adopted by the rest of the industry hoping that their ill-fated XPS adventure would somehow put both Apple and Adobe out of business. Unfortunately, XPS is still in the bowels of Windows and Microsoft applications as the imaging model with an incompatible measurement system (96 units per inch), transparency with only one blending mode (the equivalent of the “normal” blending mode of PDF – ironically, the most commonly-used transparency effect used in graphic arts, drop shadows, uses the “multiply” blending mode which can explain some visual anomalies), minimal actual support for anything other than sRGB (Publisher does support CMYK and DeviceN but poorly), etc. And although these products can “import” EPS, forget about high quality output unless you output via PostScript (and even that may end soon). You cannot place PDF assets, at least in Publisher and the other Microsoft applications under Windows.

- Dov

 

[David Milisock]

I agree about MS Publisher unfortunately good MS Publisher users are turning out work equal to and in many cases better than Adobe users. Go figure. ​I use it only when I have to. I stick to the CorelDraw Graphics Suite X8 for 100% of my creation work now. The only exception is when I use AfterShot Pro 2 and PaintShop Pro X8 for the rotten image filters.